The events crawl across the board outlining the day’s events. Finally comes one to summarize it all: Obama Finds That the World Intrudes on His Travels. The Associated Press describes how the president was distracted at every turn on his recent trip to Mexico by crisis after crisis. As the British used to say, it’s “dashed inconvenient”, coming at a time like that.

The president was In Mexico Wednesday for a summit with his North American counterparts … Each topic was fraught enough … But there would be more, and it was not on the original summit agenda.

With an eruption of violence in Ukraine … He also condemned violence in Venezuela … Last June, his two-day summit with the Group of Eight industrial economies and his visit to Berlin came after revelations that the National Security Agency had conducted surveillance of foreign communications … His trip to Brazil and Chile in March 2011 was overwhelmed by U.S. bombing over Libya….

Amid talk of expanding North American trade and building energy partnerships among the U.S., Mexico and Canada, Obama also placed his call to Erdogan half a world away to discuss Mideast conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Israel.

What made this trip stand out was how many side issues and global worries managed to get squeezed into such a short period of time.

The word used to describe a chain reaction is a “cascade”. Even the president knows he’s standing the midst of one, except that he believes he is swimming in a cascade of success. In Mexico, speaking before a stained glass window representing the Sun Man he interpeted events as representing the march of progress.

“I think this is an expression of the hopes and aspirations of people inside of Syria and people inside of the Ukraine who recognise that basic freedoms – freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, fair and free elections – are fundamental rights that everybody wants to enjoy.” …

“Our approach in the United States is not to see these as some cold war chessboard in which we’re in competition with Russia. Our goal is to make sure that the people of Ukraine are able to make decisions for themselves about their future, that the people of Syria are able to make the decisions without having bombs going off.

According to this point of view Obama is watching a victorious wave of history unfold; with people making choices and himself leading from behind as it were, the serried ranks of the hope-seeking masses of the world, not just the Arab Spring, but also the Ukranian Spring, the Venezuelan Spring, the Chinese Spring and probably the Irish Spring.

There are some who might differ in opinion. The alternative point of view is that Obama has lost the Middle East; watched the Cold War restart; overseen defeat in Afghanistan; and stood more or less open mouthed while China and Japan have come to the brink of a dangerous confrontation. Some might say he’s presided over one disaster after the other.

But as the speech before the Sun Man illustrates, he doesn’t share the concern. Not only is he not worried; he doesn’t notice or is at least mildly uplifted. So which is it? the Gateway to Hope or the Eve of Destruction? If the latter, Obama’s serenity at this point more resembles a mental condition rather than indicates a stalwart confidence. It might almost be better if he were minimally curious about the possible disasters engulfing him — intruding on his travels — and like David Beatty at Jutland at least wonder if there wasn’t “something wrong with our damned ships today”.

Did you know that you can purchase some of these books and pamphlets by Richard Fernandez and share them with you friends? They will receive a link in their email and it will automatically give them access to a Kindle reader on their smartphone, computer or even as a web-readable document.

"It might almost be better if he were minimally curious about the possible disasters engulfing him — intruding on his travels — and like David Beatty at Jutland at least wonder if there wasn’t 'something is wrong with our damned ships today'". Wretchard

Naw, Richard, you've got it all wrong. Obama is just so smart that he's 1000 steps ahead of you. These "disasters" or crises are merely opportunity in wait for the WON who alone can calm the seas, lower sea levels, and bring peace to mankind. Obama is ready to claim his destiny!

Or perhaps, as a character named "Alfred" said of another Joker:

"Some men aren't looking for anything logical. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn."

For the strong of stomach, I offer the concept of the laudatory speeches that will be made at the Democrat National Convention in 2016. Imagine how they will twist words to make all the things Wretchard has listed seem to be the arrival of heaven on earth and the apotheosis [ἀποθέωσις] of Buraq Hussein and the Leftist Ideal. And then they will nominate him for his third term by acclamation.

This brings to mind another SF novel, not Heinlein this time, but one by his heirs, Niven and Pournelle, The Mote In God’s Eye.

One of the characters, a member of royalty, explains that royals have to worry about the things that they do, and do the things they do, so that junior officers can act like playboys on occasion.

Obama is a playboy, always has been, always will be, living on the Design Margin.

And the reason he cites G.W.. Bush as the cause of so much is that Bush and his ilk were supposed to have all this bothersome stuff nailed down, taken care of, solved, and fixed. Now he has the royal stuff to do and he refuses; it’s not his job. He’s a royal playboy, not the working kind.

Obambus is a community organizer. He didn't create the bad. He isn't going to create the good. He's going to point out the bad, and demand that someone fix it, as they would have already if they were only of good intentions. But fortunately they are greedy, so Obambus has his role pointing this out and thus making it all better. If he points it out and it DOESN'T get better, well, just a lot of greedy, nasty people out there, you can hardly say that's Obambus' fault, hey.

What's really sickening is the amount of things that "Bush and his ilk" DID in fact have nailed down..... it was Obama and his ilk that unravelled virutually all of it, and did so many times for one overiding reason - "Because Bush done it", we were going to undo it. No rationality, no reasoning, no logic.... just "undo Bush". And that is so in line with the monstrous, Satanic sixties where the ethos was "if it was done by those who came before, it must be wrong". And of course when it comes time to post-mortem, assuming anyone remaiins to do so, he will point the finger at those same people, Bush and "ilk", and blame them, and his myrmadons of the media, culture and academia will stroke their chins and say, "yep, sure was".

We've all heard of the kid who shoots his parents and begs mercy because he is an orphan.

Our vaunted CinC is more like the hippie kid who burns his house down smoking dope in the basement, kills his parents AND two brothers and a sister, and claims the same mercy, and says however you want to convolute it, that it's Dad's fault in the end.

Walk down the street and ponder the number of people around you who will hear that claim and say, "Yep, that's about right." While watching the flames jump from house to house, street to street. Not his fault, how could he possibly be blamed. Damn that Buish and his crowd!

This is the way the world ends, not with a bang, but a whimper:Venezuela and Ukraine, Syria, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Central African Republic, Libya, Egypt, Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq...It's all crumbling around us.The Ohio national guard is doing drills where the 2nd amendment enthusiasts are "The Enemy".

People looking for the apocalypse, or daring themselves to stare into the abyss.For some people in Venezuela and Ukraine, their world ended today. They're dead. And in Syria, The Democratic Republic of the Congo, The Central African Republic, and on, and on, and on......

The bloody edges of what we think of as civilization. We see it if we care to look for it. NBC sounded more like People Magazine the other night, hyping the Olympics and Jimmy Fallon as the new host of the Tonight Show.

Pick your illusion and stick with it. I have no real clue how someone as intellectually and morally shallow as Barack Obama really perceives the world. As he continues to utter the bromides and tropes of the Left of the 20th Century to the huzzahs of sympathetic Media and Academics, the world continues to turn. In a way, as tragic, stupid and wasteful as his Presidency has been, I think it will ultimately reveal just how vacuous the Left and their traveling mouthbreathers really are.

Just as Francis Fukuyama was totally, utterly wrong about the "end of history", in a profound and thudding display, people will at some time, in some indeterminate future, realize what a failure as a President Obama actually was. The interim pain will be great, and some of us may not actually live to see it, but as surely as day follows night, reality will work.

But the waste and the ugliness will continue for some time to come. Keep the faith. Don't give up. Despair is a sin.

I just hate it when a beautiful woman dies. Maybe its because comeliness outwardly represents the intensity of life; it amplifies the tragedy and makes it more manifest to us.

>>She is recovered?"

"She is dying," said Mark. "It is now the afternoon. She is going out with the daylight."

The small lozenged windows, though there were two of them, lit the room faintly, for the sky was lowering and grey. Mr. Fordyce had returned, and poured out his soul at the bed-foot, but presently he grew silent like the others, for there was a hush in the room which made even the words of prayer a sacrilege. . . . The flush had gone from the girl's face, and the waxen cheeks and the blanched lips told of a mortal weakness. Her hand was in David's, as passive as a plucked flower. The lashes were quiet on her cheeks, and her faint, difficult breathing scarcely stirred the coverlet.

In that final hour peace of a kind entered into David's soul. He was truly humble at last, for all the flickerings and unrest of human desires were stilled. The joy which he had scarcely dared to hope for, the possession of that bright and rare thing, was now confirmed to him. Katrine was securely his for ever. . . . At the very end her eyes opened, and if they looked a little blindly at the others they seemed to enfold him in a passion of love. There was even the glimmer of a smile. And then the gloaming crept round them, and, as Mark had foretold, she went out with the daylight.

The quiet was broken by the loud wailing of the two women, for the composure of even the iron-Lipped Mistress Grizel now failed her. Mr. Fordyce stilled it with an uplifted hand. "The lamb is safe folded," he said.

Mistress Grizel, after the fashion of her kind, must speak. "She was a kind lassie, and had nae thochts but guid thochts, and if she was maybe no that weel instructed in sound doctrine, it was nae faut in her . . . she was aye blithe to hearken to Mr. James--" She stopped short at the sight of David's face.

"She is now at the right hand of the Throne," he said, "and I say that in the face of every minister that ever perverted the Word. She was made in the image of her Lord, and she has gone to meet Him."<<

So long as events don't interfere with Obama's golf schedule or vacations they can't be important. They're merely teachable moments where things went bad because the principal actors weren't as wise as Barrack the Magnificent.

Who will testify that Obama was wrong? Who can prove that another policy would have been better? A negative is hard to prove and easy to obscure. The needless dead will not get to speak unless we drown in their blood.

Killing the beauty queen may be Maduro's undoing. People care more about the dream than their grim reality. It is interesting that Fox is not covering Venezuela as much as the Ukraine.

"It might almost be better if he were minimally curious about the possible disasters engulfing him — intruding on his travels — and like David Beatty at Jutland at least wonder if there wasn’t 'something is wrong with our damned ships today'". Wretchard

Naw, Richard, you've got it all wrong. Obama is just so smart that he's 1000 steps ahead of you. These "disasters" or crises are merely opportunity in wait for the WON who alone can calm the seas, lower sea levels, and bring peace to mankind. Obama is ready to claim his destiny!

Or perhaps, as a character named "Alfred" said of another Joker:

"Some men aren't looking for anything logical. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn."